Podcast Episode Transcript:

Host: Hello and welcome the name of this podcast series is "Taboo Truths and Tales." This podcast is marked explicit. "Taboo Truths and Tales" is hosted by Madeira Desouza. That's me. Some of you may know me by my nickname as Woody. Whatever you want to call me, I welcome you here to this podcast. Now let's get started. Thank you.

Announcer: And here we go. Now a richly violent episode called "Barbarian Warriors, Muscled Hunks and Other Men in Distress." This is an unrestricted and uncensored conversation between two male artists who each create explicit images of suffering and threatened men whom we see on their way to losing their manhood and the very lives. Oh, it is lots of exciting and thought-provoking fun for one and all. Now I give you Madeira Desouza from the United States talking with Sparkie Shock from Canada. Gentlemen, I hereby turn this microphone over to you. Don't fuck it up.

Desouza: My guest is 3D artist Sparky Shock. His best known visual works show male victims bound to a metal frame for up-close observation of their unwilling responses to the shocking effects of electricity upon human anatomy. What prompted you to get started in 3D digital art?

Sparkie: What prompted it was was just I found myself browsing just in general the the forums at Renderotica, inside the galleries. And I was looking for some of the, like, you know, the torture porn stuff. And I found a lot of it was sort of like fun, but it was very unsatisfying because, like, I was seeing like, you know, these artists doing various things, you know, torture scenes of that. And I just felt like I could do so much a better job if I had these jobs because it's like they're not hitting the spot. They're they're sort of they're cheaping out halfway through. It's like they're they're ashamed to show that they're into this kind of stuff. And so they turn the artwork into either a bit of a joke or they don't go the whole way. And then just, you know, over the course of like a couple of nights, I think I found myself looking at model packs for like, you get like certain torture implements, like stun guns and, you know, shop beds and dungeons and things. So, oh, you can actually like buy these as a as a model pack. And so then and then they're really cheap. They're like ten bucks for a pack of this and a pack of that. And I thought, oh, that's pretty cool. And then I knew about the software Poser and I knew it cost a fair amount of money. It was like four or five hundred bucks. But then I saw an advert for Daz3D saying free. I was like, OK, I'll check that out. So it took me to Daz3D.com and the software is is then well at least at the time was then free. And the idea is that instead of buying the software, you buy models off of their store. It's actually a pretty decent business model because the the models themselves are not terribly expensive. So it allows amateurs like myself assigned to, you know, buy these things and get started. And instead of being a modeler or a texturer you just, you take pre made models and you create a scene out of it and then you can turn that into animation or a comic as well as we both do. And then realizing very quickly it's like oh I could make a I could make a comic out of this. I could you know I could really pour my my most intense fantasies into artwork. And that's what started me off and that was back in early 2014. And yeah, that's all kept going since basically.

Desouza: We have very similar starting points. I did start with Poser and I found it was expensive. I found I didn't really care for the way they worked, they meaning the Poser app. And then I discovered Daz3D and I found, wow, this is so much better. And I have never gone back to Poser. I just think Daz3D is a wonderful app. Like you said, you can get inexpensive elements. I call them digital assets. You know and why should one spend the time doing textures and creating images? You know, objects like an automobile or a cowboy hat or whatever. The storytelling is what matters, I think, And what you do, what an artist does with his art. So, you know, I don't care that someone else created the cowboy hat that I just use it. And instead of a black hat, I make it white, that kind of thing, you know, So. But it sounds like you have very similar beginnings.

Sparkie: Yeah. Well, it's kind of funny because I remember having the same sort of discussion with a friend of mine who's a professional photographer. And because we were talking about, like, you know, you get some comments from people saying, you know, like, well, is it really your art if it's not your model? You know, you didn't make the model. So how much do you really own it? And to which he had a really great reply to that which is, well, the photographer isn't required to build his own bloody camera from scratch. You know, he doesn't have to be a lenscrafter and he doesn't have to understand mono electronics to make a circuit board and literally create camera in order to then take an image and own the image, he just goes to a store, buys the camera, buys the lens and gets on with the process of being creative. And so it's very similar to that in a way. Like, you know, that's the whole point of the Daz3D assets is there is a world of difference between a modeler, a texture artist, a sculptor and a a creative in terms of the person who's going to use those assets and turn it into a story. And it's OK to be either of those. And a lot of people who make the models have no interest in making art with them. You know, the whole point is they make them so that we artists take them and then make something out of them. And yeah, I don't think that's it's pretty cool. There's basically room for everyone in these sorts of things.

Desouza: I had a similar experience, I met an artist, kind of a famous guy, someone I was in touch with, Martin of Holland. I know his real name, but I can't recall it. I don't have it written down. He is no longer living and he was a very, very angry man. He would, he would. We corresponded by email. And he looked at the stuff that I was creating and he eventually said, like what your photographer friend addressed. Well, how can this, how can this be considered art if you didn't touch your fingers to a pen or a pencil or a paintbrush and it's like what, you know, that's a real 18th century, I would say, perspective. And I happen to live in the 21st. Thank you very much, you know. So I don't think people nowadays, especially young people, you know, they've heard of Rembrandt and they've heard of Da Vinci and whatever. Salvador Dali and others, you know that painted created art with their hands. But so what, you know, it's the interpretation, it's the viewing, the enjoyment is what I aim for, not for myself but for the viewer. And it sounds like you were doing the the same or similar work.

Sparkie: Yeah. I mean, when it comes right down to it, the the medium is different and whenever, because I don't get it often, but I've had a few arguments with with artists who are, you know, traditional line drawing artists and they're the kinds that, well, you know, you're not really an artist. I'm like, well, for a start, I don't, I don't really, you know, take myself as an artist anyway. I mean, I kind of do, but it's more of a loose term. It's, you know at the end of the day that the label doesn't really mean anything. I don't really care if I'm considered an artist or you know, whatever other name you'd like to assign to it. The, you know, as you say, the business of telling the story and showing something off is, is more interesting. And actually if I'm if I can namedrop just a little bit, I have actually, I think you do too. But a little bit of communication with Lionel Cavello, who of course is rather famous and the exquisite, you know, drawings. And it's always fun chatting to him because when I I'll send him some of my artwork just to, you know show him what I'm up to and he he's always kind of blown away by the the the actual the look of things. Like because he's like, man, I couldn't even imagine how I would achieve that sort of look. It's well it's it's entirely different discipline. I mean these these are not they're not really compatible in terms of like comparing them. It's literally comparing an apple to an orange. You know when you've got like line drawings versus 3D art, it's one is digital virtual photography and the other one is like literally like the skill of line drawing. So yeah, there's no reason to get heated up I think about over any of these things because they they are what they are.

Desouza: Yeah, well. And Martin of Holland, may he rest in peace, but I didn't give a shit what he thought about me. And he made comments saying comparing myself to him or his work to mine. And you know, it's pointless to do that because like you say, they're different. It's apples and oranges and he's no longer living. And we are. So here we go.

Sparkie: How smart are you? You're dead.

Desouza: That's right.

Sparkie: The thing about doing what we do is there's an underlying underlying sort of or what is even the word I can describe here. And it's it's a very dark sort of subject matter. And for most people it's incredibly uncomfortable. And then you can see why, of course, you know, can't really pretend it's not, but it's what we do is we sort of lavish the moment. It's kind of like with a horror film. And then, you know, horror film is about, you know, that quickening experience of of of vicariously living something that you would never want to go through in real life. You know, you just have to look at like the "Saw" movies or, you know, "Texas Chainsaw Masacre" or anything like that. You know, there's no way in hell. Do you ever want to be in those real situations, at least as the victim or anything in that book? So you know, what we do is we allow people to vicariously experience some of the more extreme aspects of S&M, you know, in a way that allows. Because the way I always structure my comics is I want the person to feel that they can be either the the buster, the bustee or a third person watching the scene. So if you look carefully at the way I structure the sort of comics and such, they're usually done in such a way that you could easily sort of see yourself through the eyes of of of both victim and torturer. But also to be able to step outside of that and experience it in third person. And so it sort of covers all three angles. And I think the best compliments I've ever had is when people, particularly with my "Basement of Pain" comic, where they say they can sort of smell the atmosphere in the dungeon. They could go, you know, smell the damp that's on the wall and hear the the the sounds of like metal and chains and kind of stuff. And that that's a fantastic thing. Because I usually like try to make sure that people get the the most sort of cinematic experience out of my work. And that comes to my background in, you know, wanting to make film and everything like that. It's something I aspire to is not necessarily like complete photorealism, but I want to get that sense of drama across.

Desouza: Yeah. Well, you touched on exactly the, just the average guy that you might encounter on Twitter or Facebook, you know, that makes comments like, well, your work is hot. It's like, OK, hot. What does that mean?

Sparkie: You know, like, can you articulate beyond that? Yeah. And I would say that that with with S&M and like ball busting and and people who are into that sort of thing, there tends to be a lot more honesty and and I would say truthfulness to a person like that. That's not to say that they can't find something. That's not to say that, you know, there can't be a little bit of subtrafuge, but in general you know that they're going to be far more honest about what they want out of out of things. And I appreciate that more than anything else. It's far more real, you know, in life to to go through that sort of thing.

Desouza: I really like your work. It's just enough out there, if you will, in the sense of the violence that the character is enduring and you know, the people that are that are inflicting the violence upon the character also very realistic. So I see what you're saying and giving the viewer the opportunity to be either put themselves in as the victim or as the one who's doing the torturing or just as a the third party viewer. I am exactly on the same page with you on that. One thing I wanted to talk about the recipient of the story or the message they need to let go of their expectations. You have to have what's in the business called the willing suspension of disbelief. In that, you know, like Marlon Brando when he made the movie "The Godfather" wasn't an overweight Italian. Well, he may be Italian, but he wasn't an overweight guy. Vito Corleone. That was makeup and appliances and acting. So it's the same kind of thing. People need to suspend disbelief and to accept Vito Corleone is a good, a realistic thing, a character, but he isn't really Marlon Brando. The suspension of disbelief is what it's all about. You have to kind of set aside. Well, that doesn't have my exact hair color kind of comments.

Sparkie: I mean, yeah, I I every time someone's asked me to to do and it doesn't happen too often. But, you know, if I do get a commission to recreate someone, I will give it the caveats. Like, look, this is never going to be 100% because, you know, the the sort of software that allows me to do the uncanny valley thing with you, like, yeah, that belongs to big companies like ILM. I can't do that. You know, I can do the best approximation. So it's it's going to be as close as I can get it. But, you know, yeah, you're going to allow a certain, you know, amount of errata as it were because with the fact of the matter is even with the best software, the best resolution photographs, you only ever get like, you know, certain close, like I did pretty well with Mark. But even he would. When he looks at his image, he's like, well, it does look like me, but it looks like me 10 years ago, like, OK, well, hey, you know, at least it's flattering you,

Desouza: Right, Right. And that. And being 10 years younger is never a bad thing. Never.

Sparkie: Right. Yeah. If only I could do it to myself for real mind being 33 again, that would be nice.

Desouza: Well, and that that's one of the funnest things. Is that a word? The most fun things about digital is that I did create, as you have done. I created a character that is representative of myself. You know, I refer to him, the character, as the artist or the creator, Not the creator in heaven if there is such a thing, but the creator of the story, of the art. And I'm not saying I'm God, but I'm kind of God. Well, we play in the role of God.

Sparkie: Well, we do. We create people, we create worlds and they live and die by our hand.

Desouza: Yeah. And it's a it's an amazing. This is really self-serving. But we have such power. I tell you we we create life and we take life. It's remarkable. It's remarkable, isn't it?

Sparkie: It really is.

Desouza: Now when you when you put a story together where I have talked very openly about how my inspirations I create always, I always create the character 1st and whether he is an original or derived from a photograph of some other guy, I always start with the character and then I explain it that the character tells me what they want to happen to them in a story. Which is kind of odd to say kind of spooky. But I read about how Paul McCartney gets inspired through dreams. He gets music that comes in his dreams. He gets lyrics and so forth. So I think that I'm don't compare myself to Paul McCartney but the inspiration is "elsewhere." It isn't inside of me at least I don't know and and so I always attribute it to "elsewhere." It's out there somewhere, and it comes to me, How do you, how do you work in that context?

Sparkie: Well the stories I've done so far, like the first three Sparky Shock stories, were just kind of like, I just kind of sat back and thought, well, what is my most depraved kind of like ambitious, you know, what I would like to see or experience or, you know, like every angle of this? It's it was just like you know what is my biggest wish list for what I would like to to see and do in a in a in a scene like this. And I didn't really even have to think about it. I just put it together and so the the the first comic was the idea and it was kind of just me really letting go. In fact the the first version of that first comic was was the first draft of that I submitted to Dreamboy Bondage, which at the time I was kind of doing a bit of cross promotion with. And they didn't like the story because they were like this is too complex like simplified down. And so I did and then I came up with the second version. They didn't like that either. And then what ended up with, instead of being like a full comic, which is what my idea was, they just wanted twenty single panels. And I'm like, this is so unsatisfying. I can't even begin. I mean, I did a little bit of cross promotion with them for a time, but yeah, I haven't talked to them in years. But the the first comic was meant to be the story of a a guy, a young guy who accidentally happens across someone he really lusts over in college or school or whatever, I guess like a high school. And he witnesses that person killing someone else in a very sexy way. Basically I have a bit of a throat fuck fetish. I'm not entirely sure what caused that, but I do. And so the idea is this guy throat fuck someone to death. And I just thought, that's fucking great. And the idea is this, this other guy witnesses this, but instead of being elderly, he's he's afraid, he spooked and everything, but he's also really turned on. And the idea is he then approaches this, this person you know and basically admits that he's seen the act, he's seen what's happened and but he's not going to tell anyone. He's not going to tell the police. But what he wants is for this person to do that to him. And this person then laughs in his face, turns it down and basically, you know just tells him to fuck off. And so the the would be victim is so pissed off and depressed by the fact that he is offered the ultimate gift and been turned down that he then proceeds to kidnap that person and then torture. So that was what was behind the entire first story. And so it's this person who is this normal person discovers that they have a bit of a like a bit of a death wish and then discovering later on that oh, not only do they have that, but then they really, you know, just torturing this person and really, really enjoys that too. So it's like wow, so that's a serious bit of self discovery right there. And it was just me really letting go and just really like, you know, like just putting it all out there and just being like fuck it, you know, that doesn't even matter if no one likes it. But then of course, I put the comic out there. And obviously, it was only ever going to be a very niche market that was going to enjoy it. But I found that market and they were like, more please.

Desouza: Yeah. And then and that's the key. That's the key that there are people out there who want to see that even if it's dark, even if it's involving suffering on the part of a victim or deaths on the part of a victim, there's a death fetish, male death fetish. You know, all these things exist in the world that we are in. We've chosen to be there. Now you the work that you do, the storytelling about characters being tortured and there's a lot of electricity or battery. I'm not sure how to express this in an accurate way, but some kind of metal, a metal frame and the guy is physically in contact. Yeah. And then there's a shocking, pun intended, response to the current electricity or battery going through anatomy, right? And that's one of the standard elements of your storytelling. Very, very vibrant, very alive. You know, you can almost hear the sizzling, at least when I look at it, when you think about that, right. That's exactly what you want. When you think about that, do you think about in the world also that we live in 21st century, there is military or paramilitary torture of combatants. Is that the word soldiers, warriors being captured and tortured by their adversaries? You don't seem to get too much into that. I've seen military themes but have you chosen not to get into political in the sense of naming a country or naming a terrorist group, that kind of thing?

Sparkie: I haven't made any conscious choice to do that. I guess it's I'm never really that fussed about particular organizations or or you know countries. It's it's more than just about the I think I've been more gravitated toward the the more personal experience of a single person not really caring what their reasons are. Because the the I think the one of the aspects of my work is that it's acknowledging the fact that someone would talk to someone not because they're an enemy, not because that, you know they're trying to get information. It's simply for the pure dark sexual thrill of enjoying causing pain which is probably the most despicable reason to do it. But it's also the most intense and kind of the most compelling reason. Like there's a film oh God, I can't remember. I think it was "Eight Millimeter." I think it was a Nicolas Cage film, actually a pretty good one. And it was where he he's tracking down like an organization that makes snuff films And and it, you know, turns out like most of them are fake. But like on occasion there's like real ones. And you know, it's because a girl goes missing and he eventually tracks down the torturer and he's he just expects a monster. And instead he's, you know he kind of takes the the hood off this guy and he's like yeah I know what you expected that it's just just a fat guy with glasses and he's like yeah, you know it's like we're we're just we just look like you. We're just regular people. We just do we just do things differently. I don't remember that film thinking like, God, that's that's more disturbing than anything else is the fact that like a a regular normal person. You know and we we like to, you know because people like to say, oh this person was sick and this person was perverted. They're deviant. You know they're, you know they're attaching all the labels and that's usually a bit of a self-defense reaction I think to to to distance yourself because the last thing you want to ever fill the most normal people do not want to ever think that they are capable of that. Just because like they are. Yeah. Because because we kind of all are really.

Desouza: And so the person that might, you might think, one might think is a monster could be normal and it could be like the guy sitting next to you the next day on the subway, you know.

Sparkie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Desouza: I have really enjoyed talking to you. I hope our listeners have enjoyed hearing us talking about what we do, one artist talking to another, sharing perspectives and horrible stories and whatnot. I really appreciate your spending the time with me today.

Sparkie: Yeah, It's been great to chat with you. As they say, it's nice to chat artist to artist. And we do a lot of very similar things. And as I've appreciated your art, so it's. It's nice to know you appreciate mine too. And I look forward to seeing what we'll both come up with in the future. It will be cool. All right, then. While you take care and great time with you. All right.

Desouza: Thank you so much. Take care.

Announcer: Thank you oh so much for listening. You heard an episode called "Barbarian Warriors Muscled Hunks and Other Men in Distress." See the visual works of Sparkie Shock online at deviantart.com/sparkieshock and visit mail.gallery for the visual works of Madeira Desouza of Las Vegas. Be sure to tell others about this episode. "Barbarian Warriors, Muscled Hunks and Other Men in Distress." Share what you know. Give it a go. Everyone here working on the "Taboo Truths and Tales" podcast series thanks you so much for your attention and your loyalty.loyalty. We never stop thinking of you. No bullshit. That's the honest truth.